Anti-WTO Community Should Propose Trade Solutions

By Carl A. Slater

Seattle took a hit from the WTO conference. Our police chief felt compelled to retire early, and our mayor is under an ongoing siege of criticism from both supporters and opponents of the demonstrations. Both these men are moderates, possibly even liberals as far as mayors and police chiefs go. They were likely sympathetic to many of the anti-WTO community's concerns. We spent a lot of money preparing for it, having it, and continue to pay for cleaning up after it. We are unlikely to try to host another international conference for a long time, and it is unlikely that such a conference will want to come here anyway. This is not just a loss of financial opportunity. It is also a loss of the cultural and educational exchange that occurs in communities that host international conferences. This kind of exchange was one of the successes of the WTO conference.

During the conference the anti-WTO community did not present an identifiable and accountable umbrella organization, nor a coordinated position on what it was for or against, nor reconcile positions that various groups and individuals presented that appeared to be in conflict. However, there did seem to be a consensus, among the participants and the teach-ins , that the world would be better off without the WTO.

Perhaps the demonstrators need to consider world trade before the WTO came into being. That was a time of far fewer restrictions on the exploitation of people and resources. Trade decisions were made in colonial foreign offices, dictators' palaces and corporate headquarters. What might make the old bilateral trade days seem better was that the forests then were much larger, the greenhouse gas levels lower, and the people almost invisible to the developed world. It is difficult to see how going back to that paradigm, without attempting to reform or to replace the WTO, would be better.

The anti-WTO community owes the citizens of the world and especially the citizens of Seattle a convention that develops an integrated platform that is a model of how world trade should be conducted. They should produce a world trade paradigm that balances economic, social, environmental, labor, and quality of life concerns in a way that is superior to the WTO. Delegate selection, voting and proceedings should reflect the democratic principles that the anti-WTO community said were lacking in the WTO process.

This letter is not just a rhetorical exercise to challenge the anti-WTO community: it is a sincere proposal. Such an exercise would be beneficial to everyone. It would give the anti-WTO community a positive opportunity to make a comprehensive statement about how world trade should be conducted. It would offer those involved in trade policy and WTO issues a package of new ideas. It would give the citizens of the world a measuring tool to evaluate trade agreements and trade organizations.

Seattle would be a wonderful place for such a gathering.

Carl Slater is an aerospace engineer at Boeing, a Wallingford resident and a regular reader of The Seattle Press.

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